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diff --git a/7176.txt b/7176.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6097d0a --- /dev/null +++ b/7176.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1072 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Letter to a Hindu, by Leo Tolstoy + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: A Letter to a Hindu + +Author: Leo Tolstoy + +Commentator: M. K. Gandhi + +Release Date: December, 2004 [EBook #7176] +Posting Date: April 6, 2009 [EBook #7176] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A LETTER TO A HINDU *** + + + + +Produced by Chetan Jain + + + + + + + + +A LETTER TO A HINDU + + +THE SUBJECTION OF INDIA--ITS CAUSE AND CURE + + +_With an Introduction by_ M. K. GANDHI + + +By Leo Tolstoy + + +INTRODUCTION + + +The letter printed below is a translation of Tolstoy's letter written in +Russian in reply to one from the Editor of Free Hindustan. After having +passed from hand to hand, this letter at last came into my possession +through a friend who asked me, as one much interested in Tolstoy's +writings, whether I thought it worth publishing. I at once replied in +the affirmative, and told him I should translate it myself into Gujarati +and induce others' to translate and publish it in various Indian +vernaculars. + +The letter as received by me was a type-written copy. It was therefore +referred to the author, who confirmed it as his and kindly granted me +permission to print it. + +To me, as a humble follower of that great teacher whom I have long +looked upon as one of my guides, it is a matter of honour to be +connected with the publication of his letter, such especially as the one +which is now being given to the world. + +It is a mere statement of fact to say that every Indian, whether he +owns up to it or not, has national aspirations. But there are as many +opinions as there are Indian nationalists as to the exact meaning of +that aspiration, and more especially as to the methods to be used to +attain the end. + +One of the accepted and 'time-honoured' methods to attain the end +is that of violence. The assassination of Sir Curzon Wylie was an +illustration of that method in its worst and most detestable form. +Tolstoy's life has been devoted to replacing the method of violence for +removing tyranny or securing reform by the method of non-resistance to +evil. He would meet hatred expressed in violence by love expressed in +self-suffering. He admits of no exception to whittle down this great +and divine law of love. He applies it to all the problems that trouble +mankind. + +When a man like Tolstoy, one of the clearest thinkers in the western +world, one of the greatest writers, one who as a soldier has known +what violence is and what it can do, condemns Japan for having blindly +followed the law of modern science, falsely so-called, and fears for +that country 'the greatest calamities', it is for us to pause and +consider whether, in our impatience of English rule, we do not want to +replace one evil by another and a worse. India, which is the nursery +of the great faiths of the world, will cease to be nationalist India, +whatever else she may become, when she goes through the process of +civilization in the shape of reproduction on that sacred soil of gun +factories and the hateful industrialism which has reduced the people of +Europe to a state of slavery, and all but stifled among them the best +instincts which are the heritage of the human family. + +If we do not want the English in India we must pay the price. +Tolstoy indicates it. 'Do not resist evil, but also do not yourselves +participate in evil--in the violent deeds of the administration of the +law courts, the collection of taxes and, what is more important, of +the soldiers, and no one in the world will enslave you', passionately +declares the sage of Yasnaya Polyana. Who can question the truth of +what he says in the following: 'A commercial company enslaved a +nation comprising two hundred millions. Tell this to a man free from +superstition and he will fail to grasp what these words mean. What does +it mean that thirty thousand people, not athletes, but rather weak and +ordinary people, have enslaved two hundred millions of vigorous, clever, +capable, freedom-loving people? Do not the figures make it clear that +not the English, but the Indians, have enslaved themselves?' + +One need not accept all that Tolstoy says--some of his facts are not +accurately stated--to realize the central truth of his indictment of +the present system, which is to understand and act upon the irresistible +power of the soul over the body, of love, which is an attribute of the +soul, over the brute or body force generated by the stirring in us of +evil passions. + +There is no doubt that there is nothing new in what Tolstoy preaches. +But his presentation of the old truth is refreshingly forceful. His +logic is unassailable. And above all he endeavours to practise what +he preaches. He preaches to convince. He is sincere and in earnest. He +commands attention. + +[_19th November, 1909_] M. K. GANDHI + + + + + +A LETTER TO A HINDU + + +By Leo Tolstoy + + + +_All that exists is One. People only call this One by different names._ +THE VEDAS. + +_God is love, and he that abideth in love abideth in God, and God +abideth in him._ I JOHN iv. 16. + +_God is one whole; we are the parts._ EXPOSITION OF THE TEACHING OF THE +VEDAS BY VIVEKANANDA. + + + + +I + + +Do not seek quiet and rest in those earthly realms where delusions and +desires are engendered, for if thou dost, thou wilt be dragged through +the rough wilderness of life, which is far from Me. + +Whenever thou feelest that thy feet are becoming entangled in the +interlaced roots of life, know that thou has strayed from the path to +which I beckon thee: for I have placed thee in broad, smooth paths, +which are strewn with flowers. I have put a light before thee, which +thou canst follow and thus run without stumbling. KRISHNA. + +I have received your letter and two numbers of your periodical, both of +which interest me extremely. The oppression of a majority by a minority, +and the demoralization inevitably resulting from it, is a phenomenon +that has always occupied me and has done so most particularly of late. +I will try to explain to you what I think about that subject in general, +and particularly about the cause from which the dreadful evils of which +you write in your letter, and in the Hindu periodical you have sent me, +have arisen and continue to arise. + +The reason for the astonishing fact that a majority of working people +submit to a handful of idlers who control their labour and their very +lives is always and everywhere the same--whether the oppressors and +oppressed are of one race or whether, as in India and elsewhere, the +oppressors are of a different nation. + +This phenomenon seems particularly strange in India, for there more than +two hundred million people, highly gifted both physically and mentally, +find themselves in the power of a small group of people quite alien +to them in thought, and immeasurably inferior to them in religious +morality. + +From your letter and the articles in _Free Hindustan_ as well as from +the very interesting writings of the Hindu Swami Vivekananda and +others, it appears that, as is the case in our time with the ills of all +nations, the reason lies in the lack of a reasonable religious teaching +which by explaining the meaning of life would supply a supreme law for +the guidance of conduct and would replace the more than dubious precepts +of pseudo-religion and pseudo-science with the immoral conclusions +deduced from them and commonly called 'civilization'. + +Your letter, as well as the articles in _Free Hindustan_ and Indian +political literature generally, shows that most of the leaders of public +opinion among your people no longer attach any significance to the +religious teachings that were and are professed by the peoples of India, +and recognize no possibility of freeing the people from the oppression +they endure except by adopting the irreligious and profoundly immoral +social arrangements under which the English and other pseudo-Christian +nations live to-day. + +And yet the chief if not the sole cause of the enslavement of the +Indian peoples by the English lies in this very absence of a religious +consciousness and of the guidance for conduct which should flow from +it--a lack common in our day to all nations East and West, from Japan to +England and America alike. + + + + +II + + +_O ye, who see perplexities over your heads, beneath your feet, and to +the right and left of you; you will be an eternal enigma unto yourselves +until ye become humble and joyful as children. Then will ye find Me, and +having found Me in yourselves, you will rule over worlds, and looking +out from the great world within to the little world without, you will +bless everything that is, and find all is well with time and with you._ +KRISHNA. + + +To make my thoughts clear to you I must go farther back. We do not, +cannot, and I venture to say need not, know how men lived millions of +years ago or even ten thousand years ago, but we do know positively +that, as far back as we have any knowledge of mankind, it has always +lived in special groups of families, tribes, and nations in which +the majority, in the conviction that it must be so, submissively and +willingly bowed to the rule of one or more persons--that is to a very +small minority. Despite all varieties of circumstances and personalities +these relations manifested themselves among the various peoples of +whose origin we have any knowledge; and the farther back we go the more +absolutely necessary did this arrangement appear, both to the rulers and +the ruled, to make it possible for people to live peacefully together. + +So it was everywhere. But though this external form of life existed for +centuries and still exists, very early--thousands of years before +our time--amid this life based on coercion, one and the same thought +constantly emerged among different nations, namely, that in every +individual a spiritual element is manifested that gives life to all that +exists, and that this spiritual element strives to unite with everything +of a like nature to itself, and attains this aim through love. This +thought appeared in most various forms at different times and +places, with varying completeness and clarity. It found expression in +Brahmanism, Judaism, Mazdaism (the teachings of Zoroaster), in Buddhism, +Taoism, Confucianism, and in the writings of the Greek and Roman sages, +as well as in Christianity and Mohammedanism. The mere fact that this +thought has sprung up among different nations and at different times +indicates that it is inherent in human nature and contains the truth. +But this truth was made known to people who considered that a community +could only be kept together if some of them restrained others, and so +it appeared quite irreconcilable with the existing order of society. +Moreover it was at first expressed only fragmentarily, and so obscurely +that though people admitted its theoretic truth they could not entirely +accept it as guidance for their conduct. Then, too, the dissemination of +the truth in a society based on coercion was always hindered in one and +the same manner, namely, those in power, feeling that the recognition +of this truth would undermine their position, consciously or sometimes +unconsciously perverted it by explanations and additions quite foreign +to it, and also opposed it by open violence. Thus the truth--that his +life should be directed by the spiritual element which is its basis, +which manifests itself as love, and which is so natural to man--this +truth, in order to force a way to man's consciousness, had to struggle +not merely against the obscurity with which it was expressed and the +intentional and unintentional distortions surrounding it, but also +against deliberate violence, which by means of persecutions and +punishments sought to compel men to accept religious laws authorized +by the rulers and conflicting with the truth. Such a hindrance and +misrepresentation of the truth--which had not yet achieved complete +clarity--occurred everywhere: in Confucianism and Taoism, in Buddhism +and in Christianity, in Mohammedanism and in your Brahmanism. + + + + +III + + +_My hand has sowed love everywhere, giving unto all that will receive. +Blessings are offered unto all My children, but many times in their +blindness they fail to see them. How few there are who gather the gifts +which lie in profusion at their feet: how many there are, who, in wilful +waywardness, turn their eyes away from them and complain with a wail +that they have not that which I have given them; many of them defiantly +repudiate not only My gifts, but Me also, Me, the Source of all +blessings and the Author of their being._ KRISHNA. + +_I tarry awhile from the turmoil and strife of the world. I will +beautify and quicken thy life with love and with joy, for the light of +the soul is Love. Where Love is, there is contentment and peace, and +where there is contentment and peace, there am I, also, in their midst._ +KRISHNA. + +_The aim of the sinless One consists in acting without causing sorrow +to others, although he could attain to great power by ignoring their +feelings._ + +_The aim of the sinless One lies in not doing evil unto those who have +done evil unto him._ + +_If a man causes suffering even to those who hate him without any +reason, he will ultimately have grief not to be overcome._ + +_The punishment of evil doers consists in making them feel ashamed of +themselves by doing them a great kindness._ + +_Of what use is superior knowledge in the one, if he does not endeavour +to relieve his neighbour's want as much as his own?_ + +_If, in the morning, a man wishes to do evil unto another, in the +evening the evil will return to him._ + + +THE HINDU KURAL. + + +Thus it went on everywhere. The recognition that love represents the +highest morality was nowhere denied or contradicted, but this truth was +so interwoven everywhere with all kinds of falsehoods which distorted +it, that finally nothing of it remained but words. It was taught that +this highest morality was only applicable to private life--for home +use, as it were--but that in public life all forms of violence--such as +imprisonment, executions, and wars--might be used for the protection +of the majority against a minority of evildoers, though such means were +diametrically opposed to any vestige of love. And though common sense +indicated that if some men claim to decide who is to be subjected to +violence of all kinds for the benefit of others, these men to whom +violence is applied may, in turn, arrive at a similar conclusion with +regard to those who have employed violence to them, and though the +great religious teachers of Brahmanism, Buddhism, and above all of +Christianity, foreseeing such a perversion of the law of love, have +constantly drawn attention to the one invariable condition of love +(namely, the enduring of injuries, insults, and violence of all kinds +without resisting evil by evil) people continued--regardless of all +that leads man forward--to try to unite the incompatibles: the virtue +of love, and what is opposed to love, namely, the restraining of evil by +violence. And such a teaching, despite its inner contradiction, was so +firmly established that the very people who recognize love as a virtue +accept as lawful at the same time an order of life based on violence and +allowing men not merely to torture but even to kill one another. + +For a long time people lived in this obvious contradiction without +noticing it. But a time arrived when this contradiction became more +and more evident to thinkers of various nations. And the old and simple +truth that it is natural for men to help and to love one another, but +not to torture and to kill one another, became ever clearer, so that +fewer and fewer people were able to believe the sophistries by which the +distortion of the truth had been made so plausible. + +In former times the chief method of justifying the use of violence and +thereby infringing the law of love was by claiming a divine right +for the rulers: the Tsars, Sultans, Rajahs, Shahs, and other heads of +states. But the longer humanity lived the weaker grew the belief in this +peculiar, God--given right of the ruler. That belief withered in the +same way and almost simultaneously in the Christian and the Brahman +world, as well as in Buddhist and Confucian spheres, and in recent times +it has so faded away as to prevail no longer against man's reasonable +understanding and the true religious feeling. People saw more and more +clearly, and now the majority see quite clearly, the senselessness and +immorality of subordinating their wills to those of other people just +like themselves, when they are bidden to do what is contrary not only to +their interests but also to their moral sense. And so one might suppose +that having lost confidence in any religious authority for a belief in +the divinity of potentates of various kinds, people would try to free +themselves from subjection to it. But unfortunately not only were the +rulers, who were considered supernatural beings, benefited by having the +peoples in subjection, but as a result of the belief in, and during the +rule of, these pseudodivine beings, ever larger and larger circles of +people grouped and established themselves around them, and under an +appearance of governing took advantage of the people. And when the old +deception of a supernatural and God-appointed authority had dwindled +away these men were only concerned to devise a new one which like its +predecessor should make it possible to hold the people in bondage to a +limited number of rulers. + + + + +IV + + +_Children, do you want to know by what your hearts should be guided? +Throw aside your longings and strivings after that which is null and +void; get rid of your erroneous thoughts about happiness and wisdom, and +your empty and insincere desires. Dispense with these and you will know +Love._ KRISHNA. + +_Be not the destroyers of yourselves. Arise to your true Being, and then +you will have nothing to fear._ KRISHNA. + + +New justifications have now appeared in place of the antiquated, +obsolete, religious ones. These new justifications are just as +inadequate as the old ones, but as they are new their futility cannot +immediately be recognized by the majority of men. Besides this, those +who enjoy power propagate these new sophistries and support them so +skilfully that they seem irrefutable even to many of those who +suffer from the oppression these theories seek to justify. These new +justifications are termed 'scientific'. But by the term 'scientific' is +understood just what was formerly understood by the term 'religious': +just as formerly everything called 'religious' was held to be +unquestionable simply because it was called religious, so now all that +is called 'scientific' is held to be unquestionable. In the present case +the obsolete religious justification of violence which consisted in the +recognition of the supernatural personality of the God-ordained ruler +('there is no power but of God') has been superseded by the 'scientific' +justification which puts forward, first, the assertion that because the +coercion of man by man has existed in all ages, it follows that such +coercion must continue to exist. This assertion that people should +continue to live as they have done throughout past ages rather than +as their reason and conscience indicate, is what 'science' calls +'the historic law'. A further 'scientific' justification lies in the +statement that as among plants and wild beasts there is a constant +struggle for existence which always results in the survival of +the fittest, a similar struggle should be carried on among human +beings--beings, that is, who are gifted with intelligence and love; +faculties lacking in the creatures subject to the struggle for +existence and survival of the fittest. Such is the second 'scientific' +justification. + +The third, most important, and unfortunately most widespread +justification is, at bottom, the age-old religious one just a little +altered: that in public life the suppression of some for the protection +of the majority cannot be avoided--so that coercion is unavoidable +however desirable reliance on love alone might be in human intercourse. +The only difference in this justification by pseudo-science consists in +the fact that, to the question why such and such people and not others +have the right to decide against whom violence may and must be +used, pseudo-science now gives a different reply to that given by +religion--which declared that the right to decide was valid because it +was pronounced by persons possessed of divine power. 'Science' says +that these decisions represent the will of the people, which under a +constitutional form of government is supposed to find expression in all +the decisions and actions of those who are at the helm at the moment. + +Such are the scientific justifications of the principle of coercion. +They are not merely weak but absolutely invalid, yet they are so much +needed by those who occupy privileged positions that they believe in +them as blindly as they formerly believed in the immaculate conception, +and propagate them just as confidently. And the unfortunate majority of +men bound to toil is so dazzled by the pomp with which these 'scientific +truths' are presented, that under this new influence it accepts these +scientific stupidities for holy truth, just as it formerly accepted +the pseudo-religious justifications; and it continues to submit to the +present holders of power who are just as hard-hearted but rather more +numerous than before. + + + + +V + + +_Who am I? I am that which thou hast searched for since thy baby eyes +gazed wonderingly upon the world, whose horizon hides this real life +from thee. I am that which in thy heart thou hast prayed for, demanded +as thy birthright, although thou hast not known what it was. I am +that which has lain in thy soul for hundreds and thousands of years. +Sometimes I lay in thee grieving because thou didst not recognize me; +sometimes I raised my head, opened my eyes, and extended my arms calling +thee either tenderly and quietly, or strenuously, demanding that thou +shouldst rebel against the iron chains which bound thee to the earth._ + +KRISHNA. + + +So matters went on, and still go on, in the Christian world. But we +might have hope that in the immense Brahman, Buddhist, and Confucian +worlds this new scientific superstition would not establish itself, and +that the Chinese, Japanese, and Hindus, once their eyes were opened to +the religious fraud justifying violence, would advance directly to a +recognition of the law of love inherent in humanity, and which had +been so forcibly enunciated by the great Eastern teachers. But what has +happened is that the scientific superstition replacing the religious one +has been accepted and secured a stronger and stronger hold in the East. + +In your periodical you set out as the basic principle which should guide +the actions of your people the maxim that: 'Resistance to aggression is +not simply justifiable but imperative, nonresistance hurts both Altruism +and Egotism.' + +Love is the only way to rescue humanity from all ills, and in it you +too have the only method of saving your people from enslavement. In very +ancient times love was proclaimed with special strength and clearness +among your people to be the religious basis of human life. Love, and +forcible resistance to evil-doers, involve such a mutual contradiction +as to destroy utterly the whole sense and meaning of the conception of +love. And what follows? With a light heart and in the twentieth +century you, an adherent of a religious people, deny their law, feeling +convinced of your scientific enlightenment and your right to do so, and +you repeat (do not take this amiss) the amazing stupidity indoctrinated +in you by the advocates of the use of violence--the enemies of truth, +the servants first of theology and then of science--your European +teachers. + +You say that the English have enslaved your people and hold them in +subjection because the latter have not resisted resolutely enough and +have not met force by force. + +But the case is just the opposite. If the English have enslaved the +people of India it is just because the latter recognized, and still +recognize, force as the fundamental principle of the social order. In +accord with that principle they submitted to their little rajahs, and +on their behalf struggled against one another, fought the Europeans, the +English, and are now trying to fight with them again. + +A commercial company enslaved a nation comprising two hundred millions. +Tell this to a man free from superstition and he will fail to grasp +what these words mean. What does it mean that thirty thousand men, not +athletes but rather weak and ordinary people, have subdued two hundred +million vigorous, clever, capable, and freedom-loving people? Do not the +figures make it clear that it is not the English who have enslaved the +Indians, but the Indians who have enslaved themselves? + +When the Indians complain that the English have enslaved them it is as +if drunkards complained that the spirit-dealers who have settled among +them have enslaved them. You tell them that they might give up drinking, +but they reply that they are so accustomed to it that they cannot +abstain, and that they must have alcohol to keep up their energy. Is it +not the same thing with the millions of people who submit to thousands' +or even to hundreds, of others--of their own or other nations? + +If the people of India are enslaved by violence it is only because they +themselves live and have lived by violence, and do not recognize the +eternal law of love inherent in humanity. + +_Pitiful and foolish is the man who seeks what he already has, and does +not know that he has it. Yes, Pitiful and foolish is he who does not +know the bliss of love which surrounds him and which I have given him._ +KRISHNA. + + +As soon as men live entirely in accord with the law of love natural to +their hearts and now revealed to them, which excludes all resistance +by violence, and therefore hold aloof from all participation in +violence--as soon as this happens, not only will hundreds be unable to +enslave millions, but not even millions will be able to enslave a single +individual. Do not resist the evil-doer and take no part in doing so, +either in the violent deeds of the administration, in the law courts, +the collection of taxes, or above all in soldiering, and no one in the +world will be able to enslave you. + + + + +VI + + +_O ye who sit in bondage and continually seek and pant for freedom, seek +only for love. Love is peace in itself and peace which gives complete +satisfaction. I am the key that opens the portal to the rarely +discovered land where contentment alone is found._ KRISHNA. + +What is now happening to the people of the East as of the West is +like what happens to every individual when he passes from childhood to +adolescence and from youth to manhood. He loses what had hitherto guided +his life and lives without direction, not having found a new standard +suitable to his age, and so he invents all sorts of occupations, cares, +distractions, and stupefactions to divert his attention from the misery +and senselessness of his life. Such a condition may last a long time. + +When an individual passes from one period of life to another a time +comes when he cannot go on in senseless activity and excitement as +before, but has to understand that although he has outgrown what before +used to direct him, this does not mean that he must live without any +reasonable guidance, but rather that he must formulate for himself an +understanding of life corresponding to his age, and having elucidated +it must be guided by it. And in the same way a similar time must come in +the growth and development of humanity. I believe that such a time has +now arrived--not in the sense that it has come in the year 1908, but +that the inherent contradiction of human life has now reached an extreme +degree of tension: on the one side there is the consciousness of the +beneficence of the law of love, and on the other the existing order of +life which has for centuries occasioned an empty, anxious, restless, and +troubled mode of life, conflicting as it does with the law of love and +built on the use of violence. This contradiction must be faced, and +the solution will evidently not be favourable to the outlived law of +violence, but to the truth which has dwelt in the hearts of men from +remote antiquity: the truth that the law of love is in accord with the +nature of man. + +But men can only recognize this truth to its full extent when they +have completely freed themselves from all religious and scientific +superstitions and from all the consequent misrepresentations and +sophistical distortions by which its recognition has been hindered for +centuries. + +To save a sinking ship it is necessary to throw overboard the ballast, +which though it may once have been needed would now cause the ship to +sink. And so it is with the scientific superstition which hides the +truth of their welfare from mankind. In order that men should embrace +the truth--not in the vague way they did in childhood, nor in the +one-sided and perverted way presented to them by their religious and +scientific teachers, but embrace it as their highest law--the complete +liberation of this truth from all and every superstition (both +pseudo-religious and pseudo-scientific) by which it is still obscured +is essential: not a partial, timid attempt, reckoning with traditions +sanctified by age and with the habits of the people--not such as was +effected in the religious sphere by Guru-Nanak, the founder of the +sect of the Sikhs, and in the Christian world by Luther, and by similar +reformers in other religions--but a fundamental cleansing of religious +consciousness from all ancient religious and modern scientific +superstitions. + +If only people freed themselves from their beliefs in all kinds of +Ormuzds, Brahmas, Sabbaoths, and their incarnation as Krishnas and +Christs, from beliefs in Paradises and Hells, in reincarnations and +resurrections, from belief in the interference of the Gods in the +external affairs of the universe, and above all, if they freed +themselves from belief in the infallibility of all the various Vedas, +Bibles, Gospels, Tripitakas, Korans, and the like, and also freed +themselves from blind belief in a variety of scientific teachings about +infinitely small atoms and molecules and in all the infinitely great and +infinitely remote worlds, their movements and origin, as well as from +faith in the infallibility of the scientific law to which humanity is +at present subjected: the historic law, the economic laws, the law of +struggle and survival, and so on--if people only freed themselves from +this terrible accumulation of futile exercises of our lower capacities +of mind and memory called the 'Sciences', and from the innumerable +divisions of all sorts of histories, anthropologies, homiletics, +bacteriologics, jurisprudences, cosmographies, strategies--their name +is legion--and freed themselves from all this harmful, stupifying +ballast--the simple law of love, natural to man, accessible to all and +solving all questions and perplexities, would of itself become clear and +obligatory. + + + + +VII + + +_Children, look at the flowers at your feet; do not trample upon them. +Look at the love in your midst and do not repudiate it._ KRISHNA. + +_There is a higher reason which transcends all human minds. It is far +and near. It permeates all the worlds and at the same time is infinitely +higher than they._ + +_A man who sees that all things are contained in the higher spirit +cannot treat any being with contempt._ + +_For him to whom all spiritual beings are equal to the highest there can +be no room for deception or grief._ + +_Those who are ignorant and are devoted to the religious rites only, are +in a deep gloom, but those who are given up to fruitless meditations are +in a still greater darkness._ + + +UPANISHADS, FROM VEDAS. + + +Yes, in our time all these things must be cleared away in order that +mankind may escape from self-inflicted calamities that have reached an +extreme intensity. Whether an Indian seeks liberation from subjection +to the English, or anyone else struggles with an oppressor either of his +own nationality or of another--whether it be a Negro defending himself +against the North Americans; or Persians, Russians, or Turks against +the Persian, Russian, or Turkish governments, or any man seeking the +greatest welfare for himself and for everybody else--they do not need +explanations and justifications of old religious superstitions such as +have been formulated by your Vivekanandas, Baba Bharatis, and others, or +in the Christian world by a number of similar interpreters and exponents +of things that nobody needs; nor the innumerable scientific theories +about matters not only unnecessary but for the most part harmful. +(In the spiritual realm nothing is indifferent: what is not useful is +harmful.) What are wanted for the Indian as for the Englishman, the +Frenchman, the German, and the Russian, are not Constitutions and +Revolutions, nor all sorts of Conferences and Congresses, nor the many +ingenious devices for submarine navigation and aerial navigation, +nor powerful explosives, nor all sorts of conveniences to add to the +enjoyment of the rich, ruling classes; nor new schools and universities +with innumerable faculties of science, nor an augmentation of papers and +books, nor gramophones and cinematographs, nor those childish and for +the most part corrupt stupidities termed art--but one thing only is +needful: the knowledge of the simple and clear truth which finds +place in every soul that is not stupefied by religious and scientific +superstitions--the truth that for our life one law is valid--the law of +love, which brings the highest happiness to every individual as well +as to all mankind. Free your minds from those overgrown, mountainous +imbecilities which hinder your recognition of it, and at once the +truth will emerge from amid the pseudo-religious nonsense that has been +smothering it: the indubitable, eternal truth inherent in man, which is +one and the same in all the great religions of the world. It will in due +time emerge and make its way to general recognition, and the nonsense +that has obscured it will disappear of itself, and with it will go the +evil from which humanity now suffers. + +_Children, look upwards with your beclouded eyes, and a world full of +joy and love will disclose itself to you, a rational world made by My +wisdom, the only real world. Then you will know what love has done +with you, what love has bestowed upon you, what love demands from you._ +KRISHNA. + + +YASNAYA POLYANA. + +December 14th, 1908. + + + + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Letter to a Hindu, by Leo Tolstoy + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A LETTER TO A HINDU *** + +***** This file should be named 7176.txt or 7176.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/7/1/7/7176/ + +Produced by Chetan Jain + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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